Gmail

This week the folks responsible for creating the Gmail environment for email on devices ranging from desktop all-in-ones down to the smallest smartphone have begun unrolling their previously announced "Categories" update. This version of Gmail allows users to employ a rather simple system for categorizing emails, most of this activated and sorted automatically where, in the past, all was based only on keywords and email addresses.

Today Gmail will be appearing with an update on several platforms, each of them allowing the mail environment to sort your messages automatically. This update includes several pre-set categories such as Social, Promotions, and Updates, but can be edited and customized according to the users' preferences.

For a lot of people their e-mail inboxes a nice, safe, and comfy place to be. The web interface for Gmail is very familiar to a lot of people and Google has been working hard recently with some new and interesting features to make your e-mail box even more useful. Google has announced several new features this week, including one that will allow you to take action on certain types of e-mails from directly within your inbox.

No longer are email attachments only limited to files. Today, Google announced that Gmail will be getting Google Wallet integration, where users will be able to send money to recipients by attaching a Google Wallet payment to an email. A new money icon will appear in the compose toolbar next to the Google Drive icon where you'll be able to attach money to your message, giving an all-new to "penny for your thoughts."

Microsoft's Outlook.com email service has been growing steadily, with some users making the switch from Gmail in order to have a more unified Windows experience, among other reasons. One aspects of making the switch from Gmail to Outlook that caused issues for some users, however, was the inability to chat with Gmail contacts, a fairly big sticking point for some of us. To remedy that, Microsoft has announced an update to the service that brings Gmail chat integration.

Google has announced that it'll be changing the way it does cloud storage across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+. Instead of each service having it's own allotted amount of space. All three will be joined together and will share a pool of 15GB of cloud storage space, allowing Google Drive users to essentially have more free space than the previous 5GB that was originally offered.

Google has updated its Gmail app for iOS with a feature that many users most likely have been begging for. The app now redirects links to other Google apps, such as YouTube, Google Maps, and Chrome. Any links that appear in an email in the Gmail app will automatically go to one of these three apps if installed on your iOS device.

Google has been increasingly integrating its services with one another more and more over the past year or so, but it seems that there's always more integrating to do. The search giant has announced a new tweak in Gmail that lets users add events to their Google Calendar if Gmail detects a date or time in the email.

While the entirety of the Google apps ecosystem appears to still be flickering on according to tips we're receiving from readers as we speak, Google has reported that their entire environment should be ready to roll. What we experienced this morning was everything from slow service to entire Gmail inboxes disappearing - if you're experiencing one or the other, please feel free to let us know in the comments of this post or via our tipline email.

If you can't access your Gmail this morning, don't worry, since it's not just you. Google has reported that some of its services are experiencing a partial outage, meaning that some users can't access certain Google Apps like Gmail, Drive, and Docs. The Admin control panel and API are also partially down.

If you've been waiting all this time for Mailbox to open up to you for your iOS device, wait no more! The line-keeping outside the door for this app is finally over, with the ultra-popular means of keeping you interested in the app before you had access being axed this week. If you didn't know there was an app simply called "Mailbox" for your iPhone, well: now's as good a time as any to get onboard!

Google has just updated its Gmail app to bring improved autocomplete predictions to the service. The update should be rolling out to all Gmail users worldwide, as well as Google Apps for Business users. Autocomplete predictions will now include contact thumbnails next to your contacts, as well as past search queries made within your Gmail account. The update is rolling out as we speak, and should be available to all Gmail users within the next few days.